1993. It’s a “pivotal year in lesbian activism,” remembers Wanda Acosta, who co-hosted a weekly lesbian-focused event called No Day Like Sunday at Café Tabac. “[1993] included the first Dyke March, The Lesbian Avengers, LGBTQ March on Washington, as well as lesbian visibility in the arts, music, film and media.”
“We saw the Vanity Fair cover with k.d. lang and Cindy Crawford, Melissa Etheridge’s coming out, Meshell N’degeocello’s Plantation Lullabies, Indigo Girls, and films like Go Fish, Watermelon Woman, Paris is Burning, Last Call at Maud’s, which all set the tone for a decade of many other lesbian films and lesbian characters in TV programming.”
1993 is also the year I was born.
Sundays at Café Tabac is a documentary that “captures the zeitgeist of this cultural moment … through interviews with patrons of the Sunday Salon who experienced firsthand what it felt like to be in the room, while living through a transformational period for lesbians and the LGBTQI+ community.”
Lesbian Chic
No Day Like Sunday (1993-1995), otherwise known as the Sunday Salon or Sundays at Café Tabac, was located at a French bistro in the East Village of New York City. “The media coined the term ‘lesbian chic’ as having its genesis on Sunday nights at Café Tabac,” says Wanda. Women at Café Tabac were en vogue. No, literally, Madonna was there, striking a pose.
Lesbians of 1993 had a love-hate relationship with being referred to as ‘chic’. “[Some] rejected the label of ‘lez chic’ or ‘lipstick lesbian’, finding it reductive and a media construct that was conjured up by men for marketing. Therefore, the invasion of celebrities at our sacred spaces wasn’t welcomed by all,” Wanda continues.
Director of Sundays at Café Tabac, Karen Song, reiterates the double-edged sword of visibility. “It’s important to recognize that the idea of a ‘celesbian’ was so new, so that seeing so many at CT, who were also one of us, was so Earth-shattering for those of us in the room … It was a transitory time where so many people were newly emboldened to come out of the closet … We saw our celesbians on the big screen, under the spotlights of runway shows and magazine covers at the ubiquitous newsstands … it just made the walls of CT porous so that our access of and visible existence in the world felt not only within our reach, but also celebrated.”
‘Lesbian chic’ reminded lesbians that we can only be ‘cool’ if we become more palatable to a homophobic and misogynistic society. Many lesbians have no interest in being accepted by the popular people. “It changed the media narrative from the ‘ugly lesbian’ and all hurtful and discriminatory things that entailed, to the other extreme —a frenzy of ‘Lesbian Chic’ headlines … which we both rejected and embraced on another level,” Karen continues. “We just wanted our equal rights… [View] the famous New York magazine cover [1993] with kd lang and the title ‘Lesbian Chic’, as well as Fierce Pussy, the lesbian guerrilla art collective’s work [in response].”
Café Tabac instantly became a celebrity haunt. “It was one of the first restaurants [in the area] that merged the restaurant and private club,” says Wanda. “[It was] in the gossip column and press all the time because of the celeb and supermodel clientele. One of the owners was a model, so the top models of that time, like Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, and Stephanie Seymour, were always there.”
Sundays were no different. “Naturally, some of the curious weekday diners wanted to drop into the ‘hot lesbian party’. One night, Bono from U2 was hanging out … Madonna came with Ingrid Casares, Queen Latifah, and Fran Leibowitz. Jean Paul Gaultier sat for dinner with Edwige and me, leaving behind a doodle on the tablecloth. Lea DeLaria was a regular and was kicked out one night after a boozy, foul-mouthed incident … Jenny Shimizu and Eve Salvail came every Sunday night. We also had Guinevere Turner, Hilton Als, Pamela Sneed, and Jacqueline Woodson, to name just a few.”
Gay and lesbian people are renowned for being countercultural–for thinking outside the box–and Café Tabac served as a hub where famous creatives could gain inspiration from lesbian icons. “[Lesbian icons, such as] Edwige Belmore (Warhol, Gaultier [whom she brought to CT] and Muglier’s muse), Carole Ramer, Patricia and Rebecca Field (who ended up winning the Tony for their wardrobe work on Sex and The City–influenced by some of the looks at CT like from Ramer), Mandy & Michelle (fashion icons), Pamela Sneed (photographed by Lagerfeld), Edris Nicholls and many others—[they] gave the room more flavor than the celebrities,” Karen Song says.
The documentary
The idea for Sundays at Café Tabac came about, fittingly, over some cocktails between Wanda and Karen at a favourite local restaurant 10 years ago. “We wondered why women and friends were still reminiscing about those Sunday nights at Cafe Tabac, which at that time was 23 years later,” Wanda says.
“We decided to start filming some informal conversations with friends who were there on Sundays, and discovered that the story was much larger than just the party. It was a story about beauty, love and loss, about community as scaffolding while we build our lives and own ourselves, it was a story of two ex-lovers’ desire to hold a Sunday night salon where everyone was welcomed, where you could dance, organise around a meal and flirt to your heart’s content.”
Wanda explains that part of what made the space unique was that it was so different to other lesbian establishments or events. Wanda and her co-host, Sharee Nash, knew the community was “ready for an elevated social space that was out of the dark basements and back rooms of the past,” by creating a high-quality club environment. “[We] wanted to create a space that felt special, where you wanted to dress up to attend, have dinner and a cocktail in a proper glass, not a plastic disposable.”
Karen agrees that the sophisticated vibe made Sundays special. “It wasn’t a dive bar or a dark club with pounding music. It had an elegance—warm lighting, white linen and stemware; you could have a French bistro dinner or a proper cocktail—which many equated to our sense of pride and growing access to the world at large… but mostly you could have a conversation and see each other. Also, the sexy lounge phenomenon was just emerging in nightlife. That coincided with Sharee’s music style, which was rooted in diaspora soul music, especially the acid jazz music scene, the burgeoning Neo-soul movement, jazz and trip hop that created the lounge vibe.”
The music played alluded to Sundays’ multiculturalism, which wasn’t always as palpable at other lesbian events. “The night would transition into hip hop, R&B and soulful house music,” Karen remembers. “This music palette was a radical departure from the vibe of what a lesbian space could sound and feel like. For me, it was such a critical component of the space, and I, like many others, came religiously for the music. A really critical component was the fact that Wanda is Nuyorican and Sharee is African American. That made a HUGE difference, and the room was so racially diverse as a result.”
Activist spaces often involve a handmade aesthetic, but Sundays was both polished and political. “It was a pre-digital time, so you had to leave the house to hear new music,” Wanda says. “…The need to gather around warmth, joy and support as we mourned the death of so many to AIDS, made this evening unforgettable … In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, nightlife, politics and activism all fed each other. Downtown NYC (Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side) were the epicentre. There were so many protests to go to. You would party at night, plan with friends at those parties, and all meet up at a protest or AIDS charity event.
“You organized in people’s houses, and the LGBTQ community centre, and on the dance floor. There were many creatives living together in loft spaces where ideas were forged, activism fueled, and marches planned. There were flyers everywhere in clubs and bars, informing people about the next meetup or where protests were happening. It really was a confluence of nightlife and activism.”
Karen believes that, in 1993, combining activism and partying was, above all, a means of survival. “It was like living in a warzone. Every time you would see someone you knew, you would discover someone else was gone. Someone your age, younger even. It was such a dark time. But the community empowered itself and galvanized all our resources and people power. The result was that so much of our social lives were connected to AIDS awareness and fundraising. Danceathons, bikeathons, poetry readings at the Center, meetings, marches, fashion shows, dinners, handing out safe sex materials at clubs, anything and everything.
“This was in addition to a deep desire to be together and an appreciation for each other. And that was a bright spot for CT, because lesbian bars still operated as No Men Allowed spaces, we could bring our best friends who were gay to hang out together. In the most important way, this axis codified the LGBTQ movement, whereas it was separate [for many years] before, and paved the way for the future of the movement that we recognize today … Lesbians also didn’t just increasingly socialize with gay men, but they made an impact in activism by bringing grassroots organizing prowess into groups like ACTUP from a rich legacy of lesbian feminist organizing and by changing the perspective that challenged an oppressive system that targeted all of us.”
Naturally, community landscapes change over time, and events since the early ’90s have affected our ability to create something like Sundays in 2026. “What I miss about pre-social media, pre-gentrified urban nightlife, is the cross-pollination of ideas, backgrounds and generations that used to take place in lesbian spaces,” Karen says. “I think our access to space and ability to stay in our neighborhoods is our biggest challenge, and [our] sense of stability connected to that. Our visibility and rights [have] expanded since … we have more spaces we can be comfortable in outside of solely LGBTQ spaces. And I hope that continues. But the reverse of that is one reality that oriented the community around our lesbian nightlife in a more cohesive way back then.”
For anyone wanting to create a lesbian space today, Wanda says: “Believe in your idea, follow your instinct, be creative, and think outside of the box. Research the location and be realistic about the budget and financing. If it all feels right, go for it!”
If you would like to support Sundays at Café Tabac through a donation, click here. If you’re interested in taking on a role in its production, then email in**@***********lm.com.
“We will be completing the film this year for submission to next year’s cycle of film festivals,” Karen says. “We already filmed 70+ interviews that were used to shape the narrative backbone of the story; last year we filmed incredible re-enactments in 16mm film to transport our audiences to experience CT’s vibes in a tactile way. Now we are immersed in archivals, animation, and fundraising, quickly followed by the film score with Grammy winning artist Meshell Ndegeocello (also a CT patron and an early 90s celesbian, who was in a high profile relationship back then; she was the first artist Madonna signed to her newly formed Maverick music label, even before Alanis Morrisette) and all the film’s finishing touches.
“We are looking for donations, grants, big funders and anyone who wants to get involved as an EP, as well as institutional support, to help get us to the finish line this year. We are fiscally sponsored so any donations in the US are tax-deductible. We are excited to be able to announce that internationally renowned artists Julie Mehretu (who just had her first solo retrospective in Australia last year, I believe) and Mickalene Thomas have joined us as co-Executive Producers, which will help gain more visibility & validation for the project. We have other big names that we hope to be able to announce shortly as well.”
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